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As reported by the New York Times, Sheldon Silver, former Democratic speaker of the New York State Assembly, was found guilty of federal corruption charges on Friday, May 11, 2018, almost exactly a year after his initial conviction was thrown out.

In 2015, Silver was convicted of obtaining approximately $4 million in payments characterized as attorney referral fees solely through the corrupt use of his official position. The charges stemmed from the money Silver was paid by the state’s most prolific asbestos law firm, Weitz & Luxenberg, and from another Manhattan law firm specializing in real estate tax work.

The Maryland Court of Appeals recently overturned the state appellate court’s Duffy v. CBS Corp. decision. In the case, which involved asbestos claims for wrongful death, the appellate court held that the state’s twenty-year statute of repose for improvements to real property barred an asbestos claim brought for exposure to the substance in 1970. In overturning the appellate court, the Maryland high court most notably disagreed with the appellate court on the issue of when a cause of action arises.

Perennial Judicial Hellhole Madison County, Illinois is not ready to give up its dubious distinction as the top asbestos litigation destination anytime soon. According to a recent midyear report and earlier annual report by KCIC Consulting, Madison County’s asbestos filings increased by 5% from 2014 to 2015 and continued to increase during the first half of 2016. The riverside county of fewer than 270,000 people was home to 29% of the nation’s asbestos filings in the first half of 2016 – up from 25% of the nation’s asbestos filings in 2015. Now, the county sits atop the ranking with more than twice as many filings as second place Baltimore City. . . . → Read More: With ‘Epidemic’ of Multiple-Defendant Claims, Madison County Remains the Nation’s Leader in New Asbestos Cases

Seemingly determined to keep California atop the Judicial Hellholes rankings, an appeals court there last week ignored precedent requiring trial judges to function as “gatekeepers” when it comes to the scientific validity of expert testimony and instead upheld a decision to let jurors play that critical role in their acceptance of a discredited theory of asbestos exposure . . . → Read More: Bucking National Trend, California Appeals Court Allows Discredited Asbestos Exposure Theory

As the pool of potential claimants who’ve truly been sickened by exposure to asbestos dwindles, along with the pool of still solvent defendant companies, personal injury lawyers have filed increasingly speculative lawsuits. But many judges, to their credit, are holding the line against such claims . . . → Read More: Courts Increasingly Skeptical of Speculative Asbestos Claims

On February 17th and 19th, Judge Staci M. Yandle for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois granted seven motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction for defendants involved in a large multi-defendant asbestos case. In each claim, the plaintiff, a former Navy worker, fell far short of alleging sufficient contacts by the defendants to the state of Illinois to satisfy constitutional due process requirements. . . . → Read More: Southern Illinois Federal Court Shines Brightly in Dismissing Defendants from Non-Illinois Asbestos Exposure Claim

The latest in a long line of plaintiff-friendly asbestos judges in Madison County, Illinois, recently denied dozens of defendants’ perfectly persuasive motions for forum non conveniens in four separate cases, making it ironically clear that jurors, not judges, are asbestos defendants’ only hope for justice in this perennial Judicial Hellhole . . . → Read More: Madison County’s New Asbestos Judge Carries on Tradition of Brazenly Favoring Plaintiffs

After spending millions of taxpayer dollars on a delusional national advertising campaign aimed at bringing start-up businesses to a dying state controlled by personal injury lawyers (who in their right mind would bring a business to such a state?), New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has now admitted that those lawyers dominate state politics and he﻿ is powerless to push through a popular reform bill that actually could boost redevelopment efforts . . . → Read More: Cowardly NY Governor Admits Political Impotence, Calls Trial Lawyers ‘Most Powerful’ Force in State

A Baltimore judge has soundly rejected a proposal by the law firm of Peter Angelos to consolidate approximately 13,000 asbestos-related lawsuits involving different products, exposures, and illnesses, along with scores of defendants . . . → Read More: Baltimore Judge Rejects Mass Consolidation of Asbestos Lawsuits

Picking up where the latest Judicial Hellholes report left off, the Wall Street Journal this week editorialized about the consolidation game that asbestos kingpin Peter Angelos is trying to play in Baltimore . . . → Read More: WSJ Spotlights Asbestos Shenanigans in Judicial Hellhole